Archives for 07/15/2011 9:44 pm

Trolling the internet while on vacation, I was chilled down to the bone (impressive given the 100+ temperatures in Texas) to see on the announcement on the Center for Cartoon Studies website that the Xeric Award would be no more. Since 1992, Peter Laird of the amazeballs black and white comic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (self-published in 1984) has granted two awards a year to a cartoonist or project for its excellence.

Everyone’s wondering what Warner Brothers will do now that the end of Harry Potter is upon us. One save-the-day idea being thrown around is getting the long awaited adaptation of Vertigo’s Fables off the ground.

Continuing our look at this year’s Russ Manning Award Most Promising Newcomer nominees, we have Adam Hines, author of the extraordinary DUNCAN THE WONDER DOG, a meditation on consciousness that uses a dense, collage art technique and expressionist storytelling. It’s set in a world where animals can talk, but any idea that this is going to be a cutesy anthropomorphic tale should go right out the window. Duncan has already won a Xeric Grant, the LA Times Book Prize for best graphic novel and the first Lynd Ward Prize, and it’s nominated for the Harvey Award, making it one of the most honored graphic novels of recent years.

I’m also a graduate student in Fine Art at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where I’m currently preparing for advancement to MFA candidacy in the form of my first solo exhibition.

I’m attending Comic-Con this year mostly to do research for said solo exhibition. Most of my work in the past year has been concerned with the idea of romantic love— Is it real? If so, how’s it work? How are our perceptions of love influenced by pop culture, or are they even, perhaps, entirely resulting from it?

The death of a Spider-Man and shuffling zombies led comics and GN sales in June, according to Diamond’s just released figures. Sales were up from a dismal May, but still lag last year about 7% overall.

That’s right, next week I’ll be flying out to San Diego for my First Time with the biggest, baddest, craziest, most epic, mother of all comic book conventions. Some how, I don’t think SDCC will be gentle.